The Sweet 16 is back in action on Friday — and we're back with another Sweet 16 parlay based on the expert picks from today's episode of "Big Bets on Campus" and its betting preview of the Sweet 16 odds and lines for all four of Friday's March Madness Games.
If you missed yesterday, we're taking our favorite bets from the BBOC crew — Stuckey and the Three Man Weave squad of Matt Cox, Ky McKeon and Jim Root — for each game, placing those bets individually, then piling them all together for a Sweet 16 parlay at BetMGM, where we have a 20% odds boost for good measure.
Of course, parlays are not the most mathematically sound bets you can make. In fact, almost every parlay you'll ever bet is -EV.
And that's OK, as long as you know what you're getting yourself into, and as long as you're doing it for entertainment. Just don't trick yourself into thinking it's a ticket to a big payday, and an occasional parlay is just fine.
So let's get to Friday's Sweet 16 parlay, shall we?
Sweet 16 Parlay at BetMGM: +1177 Boosted to +1433
San Diego State +7.5
Miami 1H +4.5
Princeton-Creighton Under
Texas-Xavier Over
Alabama vs San Diego State: San Diego State +7.5
This is a tough one to figure out betting-wise, evidenced by the fact two of the four members of our Big Bets on Campus squad only had leans toward Alabama.
That left Stuckey and Jim going head-to-head on the spread, and both made compelling cases.
I'm riding with Stuck and the Aztecs to keep this within 7.5 points — with BetMGM having one of the last +7.5's in the market — but if this comes down to Alabama -7 at BetMGM, I don't hate swapping in the Crimson Tide.
Houston vs Miami: Miami 1H +4.5
Matt had the strongest take on this one. As good as Houston looked in the second 20 minutes against Auburn — in no small part thanks to the Tigers helping the Cougars look their best — the first half wasn't quite as spectacular.
There might be a bit of deja vu here, with Miami looking similarly competitive to the first half of the Hurricanes' Elite 8 game last year before the size and physicality of a slightly better team wears them down.
Creighton vs Princeton: Under
Pace, pace, pace. Matt, Ky and Jim all agreed that Princeton should be absolutely committed to keeping this game as slow as possible. That had Ky taking the Tigers to cover as 10-point underdogs, while Matty and Jim were both on the under.
We'll let democracy rule on this one.
Texas vs Xavier: Over
We'll cap the night — hopefully with our parlay still live! — by tailing Stuck on the over in this 2 versus 3 matchup. Xavier can be expected to score against basically everyone, and they want to play fast, but Stuck had no idea how the Musketeers are going to stop the Longhorns:
"They have issues defending on the perimeter. They also have issues defending in the mid-range, which is where this Texas team lives. They're just tough shotmakers all over the court. And Texas, you think of them and you say to yourself, 'I remember this grinder or this grinder during the Big 12 slog.' But at heart, this team has no issues, depending on the matchup, going up and down the court."
